Emergence
by Alpha Flyer
Summary: She stares at the light over her bed, mulling over the fact that she can do so without needing to blink. The Black Widow joins SHIELD.


Written for **tielan's** MCU Ladies' Ficathon. For **reeby10**, who asked among other things for "basically anything with Natasha kicking ass, backstory, joining SHIELD, whatever," and who thought that, "Natasha and Maria would be epic friends who take no shit and do amazing things in SHIELD." I hope that this hits some of my requester's buttons, even if it kind of skims across the prompts.

Sorry if Sitwell comes across as a little bit creepier than he does in my other stories, but what we learned recently in canon about the links between HYDRA and one of the originators of the Black Widow program, I can't see him being overly enthusiastic about Natasha's defection.

This story is an elaboration of a 100-word drabble I wrote last fall - I could not resist weaving in one of my favourite books ever. Because I ran out of time, this story is unbeta'd, so while the characters aren't mine, the mistakes sure are.

* * *

**Emergence**

**By Alpha Flyer**

* * *

I.

She stares at the light over her bed, mulling over the fact that she can do so without needing to blink. It's what Americans call a _fixture_, rather than just a bare bulb. Bright but not blinding, without a hidden agenda beyond providing illumination.

Her head is too clear for drugs, her body too rested. She must have actually slept, in addition to the reaction to whatever Barton had given her to keep his handlers from '_totally losing their shit'_, as he'd put it. Natasha looks at the wall clock – seven a.m., it says, not that that's particularly meaningful, given that she has no idea which time zone she is in now.

Relevant fact: she is awake, and her head is clear.

She experimentally moves her hands, brings one in front of her face; there are no restraints, no marks beyond those that will likely never fade (if only in her mind). The bed is real, with a decent mattress, soft and firm at the same time. _Comfortable._There are thick blankets, even a pillow. Maybe that's why she'd slept beyond the point where the drugs should have worn off?

Blankets. Pillows.

The familiar staccato voice in the back of her mind keeps yammering away at her, trying to tell her that _this is why America is weak_. _This why the West will lose_, they said, _that softness is why it cannot win_. Lose or win what, exactly? The voice never said.

In the war of ideas, what is the significance of a pillow, a joke, or a light that doesn't blind, when measured against chains on your wrist and mind? She suppresses a smile as she considers the possible correlation between decent bedding and that elusive concept of _freedom. _Politicians in the West invoke that word with the same unctuousness that her former masters call on _the will of the people_. Maybe bedding is somewhere in the middle, where actual people live actual lives.

Natasha blinks, and experimentally sits up, moving the warm blanket aside. The cold she expects to touch her skin does not materialize, and it's not just because she is wearing grey sweatpants and a cotton t-shirt with the S.H.I.E.L.D. eagle on it. No _\- they heat even their cells here._

She reaches for the glass of water beside the bed, wondering what else might be in it. More drugs?

Well, if they wanted her dead, she wouldn't be sitting here. She silently counts the number of times and the different ways in which S.H.I.E.L.D. could have killed her by now, starting with that bow and arrow in Tbilisi. So cyanide or polonium in her water glass probably aren't high on the probability list.

Natasha raises the glass in a toast to whoever is watching through the one-way mirror, and takes a deep sip. She allows the cool liquid to wet her tongue and her lips before letting it slide down her throat. It tastes good, refreshing. _Ordinary._

She wonders briefly what happened to the man who'd taken her down, then refused to finish the job. In the Red Room, that kind of failure or insubordination would not be tolerated. His punishment would have been …

Natasha shudders involuntarily and takes another, deeper sip, to swallow down the thoughts before they can turn into bile in her throat. Perhaps that's why she'd gone with him, out of sheer astonishment at his audacity?

Barton's handler hadn't seem too impressed when he had turned up with the target in tow instead of her head on a platter, but Barton himself hadn't seemed worried.

"You'll cope, Coulson, I'm sure - you always do," he'd said to his superior officer, winked as if they had been co-conspirators, and peeled back the wrapper of a power bar. Not the actions of a man who feared consequences_._

If he was right about anything he'd said during his improvised recruitment pitch, this one thing may have been it_: S.H.I.E.L.D. is not the Red Room._

Natasha steps closer towards the 'mirror', and looks at it almost in parallel to sharpen the angle as much as possible. If you stand just right, the reflection isn't quite as effective, especially if the glass has been around for a while, and you can see movement behind it. She lifts her hand in greeting, slowly and deliberately, not to provoke a reaction but to show the observers on the other side that she is aware of their presence.

She can just make them out; there's two of them. (How long have they been watching?) One of the figures is probably seated; his hands are in motion, gesticulating, making a point. And yes, he is more likely to be male: men, by and large, are impatient and obvious, makers of the _grand geste_ \- needing to take up space, be seen_._

The taller and narrower of the two is preternaturally still, like a statue. Natasha knows beyond the shadow of a doubt that this is a woman. Women tend to be more contained, observant, used to waiting in the shadows until they can strike.

Of the two observers, the woman is the one to be reckoned with.

This woman is the first Natasha has encountered at S.H.I.E.L.D., if 'encountered' is the right word for a game of shadows played through a looking glass. She'd begun to think there were none, and that Ivan Petrovich had been right - that Americans had yet to learn that women make the far more subtle, tenacious and deadly assets.

Well, so far she seems content to be watching.

Natasha finds herself at a bit of a loss, in this cell that poses no imminent threat, that seems to exist solely to give her a place to be while someone else figures out what to do. Interrogation, exchanges of fire, the risk of torture and punishment – those are things that scratch and scrabble like a rat in her skull. The sudden emptiness, the lack of not only things to do but the need to be doing them is … disconcerting.

There's a small bundle of fresh, folded clothes on the chair beside the night stand. Natasha briefly considers giving the observers a little show - if only to see what they'd do - but decides on boredom instead. Theirs, not hers. She may not be able to do much while in here, but bore them to death – that she can do.

She heads for the small bath stall at the back of her cell; it actually has a privacy door. A quick glance reveals no obvious camera, but then again, the thing is solid metal and the only way out is back into the cell.

Natasha allows herself the luxury of the longest hot shower in memory, wondering idly whether her observers might use the time to grab a coffee. Not having to worry about armed goons bursting through the door, or that someone might turn the water to ice to teach an entirely unnecessary lesson about a problem that did not need resolving – well, if that is what giving herself up to S.H.I.E.L.D. means, she might as well take advantage of it. For as long as it lasts.

The shampoo and shower gel are cheap, but do the job. They come in small pouches rather than hotel-sized bottles, presumably to avoid weaponization. Obviously no one has given any thought to what you can do with the foil lining… She squeezes a small quantity of shampoo onto her hand, then shrugs and empties the contents over her head. Which Roman was it who'd come up with the idea of seizing the day?

The clothes fit well; more sweatpants - no pull string, of course - a soft sweatshirt, basic underwear, short socks. When she comes out, there's a tray with a cup of coffee (which smells a lot better than it tastes), some orange juice, and a couple of croissants. She waves one of them at the camera in thanks, stuffs it in her mouth and examines the contents of the nightstand.

Books and magazines. How thoughtful. It's pretty clear that she will be interrogated at some point; in the meantime, might as well pass the time reading. The collection is carefully vetted stuff that (usually male) detainees might find interesting: third-rate spy thrillers without any real tradecraft; car magazines; National Geographic. No Sudoku though – the old adage being that it could be used to generate codes, although with whom she'd be exchanging coded messages here is anyone's guess.

But then a tattered book captures her attention: a dog-eared paperback, that has obviously been read multiple times. She's heard of the title: _To Kill a Mockingbird_. There's a name inside: _M. Hill, Grade 9 (Miss Engel). _Someone's schoolbook?

One of the more benign skills the Red Room imparted on its alumnae has been the ability to speed read; she should be able to finish it before they come and get her for interrogation.

She settles down on the bed, punches the pillow into an appropriate shape and starts to read.

It's a good story, critical of a society and a time and place in ways that would have gotten the author a one-way ticket to the Gulag, back in the day. (Maybe even today, the way things are going in Russia.) The book hums with a life that is both alien and beautiful, even if the relationship between the father and the children is somethingthat Natasha doesn't want to examine too closely.

And then there are the undercurrents of fear, of the unseen shadow next door. The boogeyman who comes out at night, to do ... whatever. _Boo. _Boo Radley. Him, Natasha knows all too well.

She chances a look at the one-way mirror, searching for the reflection of the woman inside the cell, rather than the shadow of the one watching from behind.

II

In addition to the one-way mirror, the cell has four different camera feeds, which to Maria is overkill. (Where she'd like to see a camera is in the bathroom – but that is something S.H.I.E.L.D.'s lawyers had balked at, delivering instead a lecture on human dignityand future law suits_._ Maria had tried to argue, but failed; the best she'd been able to do was render the impenetrable "wet cells" in the detention block impervious to suicide attempts, escape, and other things a desperate detainee might get up to.

But right now, the subject of her scrutiny is in the main part of the cell, open to viewing through each and every means. The four monitors all show the same image Maria can see clearly through the mirror: a woman, sleeping. Not moving. (There had been some twitching at 04:35 that might have been a dream, or a nightmare).

She sleeps in a curious position, on her back, with one hand slightly above her head. A bit like a baby, Maria considers - although babies usually have both hands over their heads as they sleep, in a gesture of total trust and openness to whatever may hover over them in the night. Except the sleeping form most definitely isn't a baby, and trust is not a word one associates with the Black Widow.

Sitwell, of course, is convinced that Barton's latest spot of insubordination will end in disaster for everyone concerned, and they should just flood the cell with gas and be done with it.

"Seriously. If Fury thinks that a shitty childhood and life in a circus make someone better qualified to judge a person than S.H.I.E.L.D.'s behavioural scientists, well, then we're in real trouble," he grouses, perhaps for the fifth time.

There have been several variants of this opinion, but the theme has stayed the same. Sitwell doesn't like Romanoff's presence on the helicarrier at all, that much is clear.

"Mark my words, this will end in disaster. She's a plant, that's what she is. If Barton is right and she's really defecting and will turn out to useful to S.H.I.E.L.D., I'll eat my badge."

Maria has been tuning him out pretty effectively for the last half hour or so. Truth is, she'd rather eat bits of her _desk_—never mind a mere badge - than admit that Hawkeye is capable of displaying good judgment in anything other than choosing arrow heads, but she also knows that historically, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s success as an organization has not been based on rote thinking. And if that means allowing for the possibility that Barton's pet rehabilitation project might be more of an opportunity than a threat, then so be it.

And so Maria watches.

Dawn comes (something you have to take on faith in the bowels of the helicarrier) and Romanoff stirs, throws off the blanket with something close to reluctance. For a while, she stares at the ceiling, seemingly deep in thought; the corner of her mouth twitches in an ironic smile at a joke only she understands.

There is absolutely no doubt in Maria's mind that the woman knows she is being observed: That tiny smile, the toast with the water glass, the wave. Every move is calculated - the toast had been a clear _fuck you, I know you're there. And I know that you know that I know. _

Looking over at Sitwell, whose supposedly professional interest barely covers a deluge of hormones, Maria briefly feels like toasting Romanoff back. Especially on the _fuck you_ part.

Still, while the Black Widow can't directly return her observers' scrutiny, Maria takes the opportunity to have a good look herself.

What she sees is a beautiful woman with flawless skin and hair like fire; a small, curvy body whose deceptive softness belies a core of steel. A body that is a weapon in more ways than one.

Sitwell wets his lips.

"Do you think she's as good as they say? She's just a tiny little thing."

It's nice to hear something coming out of his mouth that isn't a complaint, but Maria isn't sure that this is an improvement. Judging by the tone of his voice, he might as well be assessing a specimen in an insectarium, or a centerfold.

Maria's answer comes out at a considerable velocity.

"You should read up on the early history of the SSR, Sitwell. The first time anyone had direct contact with the Black Widow program, that program had turned out assets who were virtually unbeatable, both in close combat and tactical thinking. These women are deadly, completely submerged in whatever identity they take on. Being under-estimated just because they're women is a considerable element of their success."

She gives Sitwell a sideways glance.

"And I doubt that they've gotten less effective."

Of course, her last comment might as well have been wasted, because Romanoff chooses that moment to get up and head for the shower. Sitwell barely conceals his disappointment when she closes the bathroom door.

The thought is tempting to take this moment and grab a coffee, but who knows how quick Romanoff will be. Maria orders a standard detention breakfast from the cafeteria instead, with an extra coffee for herself. Sitwell can get his own.

Romanoff re-emerges from the shower. (Why do some women look so good, even with wet hair? Maria tends to look like a drowned rat.) She discovers the food, and waves one of the croissants at the camera in a blasé thank you. The coffee finds less favour; one sip, and she pulls a face and sets it aside.

A few minutes later, and Romanoff discovers the trove of books and magazines in the nightstand. One of Psych's bright ideas: _Humane treatment! Give the inmates something to do! Give staff a stake in detainee well-being, and let them contribute reading materials! _

Maria vaguely remembers donating a box of old paperbacks to the inventory, in an effort to up the literacy level and reduce the testosterone quotient. The cover of the book Romanoff picks up looks familiar. Sure enough – it's one of hers. But …

_To Kill a Mockingbird? _Really?

She turns to Sitwell to check on his reaction, but there is none. Figures – to someone like Jasper, a book is a book. He yawns as Romanoff starts reading.

"So when are we finally going to start questioning her?" he asks, visibly bored after ten minutes of nothing but page-flipping. "I've seen aquariums that were more interesting, even when the fish all hid in the weeds."

Maria spares him a cool glance.

"I'm not even sure we _will_ question her. No one asked you to be here. I just want to get a sense of whether she's playing us, afraid of us, about to go on a rampage, or whatever. _Before_ I open that door."

Sitwell harrumphs.

"If she's as good as you think, you're not going to see any of that. We've already established she knows we're watching."

He eyes Maria's cold coffee (really, who could drink that swill? Romanoff was right) with a jealous eye.

"I'm taking a break. Call me if something interesting happens."

He doesn't ask for permission to leave, and Maria heroically refrains from rolling out a red carpet as he heads for the door.

Romanoff is getting to the end of the book now. Maria finds herself trying to figure out which part she has reached by gauging non-existent facial expressions. (Maybe the boredom is getting to her, too?)

Judging by the small number of pages left for Romanoff to flip through at her amazing reading speed, Tom's death must have already darkened the pages. There is no visible reaction though, no outrage, no sorrow, nothing. Maybe that shouldn't be a surprise? Why would a professional killer be moved by a single death? When murder is a constant, injustice raises no eyebrows.

What about Mr. Ewell, trying to kill Jem and Scout? Barton had muttered something about Romanov protecting children? a twitch. No emotions to spare …

Just a few pages left.

Boo Radley must be on the scene by now - pale and ghostlike, the neighbourhood boogeyman turned fragile, reluctant saviour. Come and gone like a spectre, led back to the shelter of his house, with a little girl as his guide and companion.

The book drops, and Romanoff stares directly at the glass, but not at Maria - at the mirror itself. _What is she looking for? What does she see?_

And it's then that Maria sees it in her face: a flicker of something new, something different - impossible to decipher, but more than there had been before. Loss? Sorrow? Regret? _Recognition?_

Before Maria can give a name to what she'd seen, Romanoff is fully in control of her features again; her face is taut and pale, almost defiantly empty. It's a skill, not letting yourself be seen, and she has learned it well.

But Maria knows from personal experience that learning how to conceal yourself assumes that there is something to hide to begin with, and a reason to do so.

Unbidden, a quote pops into her head: _You never really know a man until you stand in his shoes…. _Scout Finch, wise beyond her years, speaking a truth that applies to women as often – if not more - than it does to men. Maybe Barton, the carnie assassin who doesn't fit any mold she's ever seen, had managed to stand in the shoes of the woman he'd been sent to kill? Seen in her someone else who, like him, had gone through hell and simply needed a better place to be?

More words sing in Maria's head now, in a soft, Southern lilt: _Neighbours bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between..._

And suddenly, she knows what she needs to do.

She turns off the monitors and heads towards the senior agents' coffee room, hoping that Barton hasn't swiped all of her Nespresso capsules again. There's a fresh container she doesn't remember buying – a sign? She harrumphs at herself for the irrational thought, and rips into the box.

Minutes later, she returns to the detention level. Sitwell is back, protesting loudly as she disengages the lock to Romanoff's cell and steps through the door, leaving it open.

Romanoff looks up at her from the bed, calm and ready. And very, very curious. Maria doesn't smile, but raises one of the mugs in a half-salute.

"Ms Romanoff? I'm Maria Hill. I thought you could use a latte. Also, I wonder whether you have a decent recipe for cooking a badge."


End file.
